Advent 2011, First Sunday

On Sunday November 27 we lit the first candle on our Advent Wreath.  It represents the element of Earth.  

The physical, material world is where we start from.  Sometimes our bodies feel so inert and immovable. We feel so heavy, so constrained, so trapped by cause and effect.  Sometimes it feels so cold and dark.  We are aware of restrictions, necessity, work, limitations.  

But there is another side to Earth.  Its positive expressions are foundations and boundaries...things we can work with to improve our lives and give them substance...form...security...strength.  

Material things can be dense and burdensome until we give them an inner meaning.  That is our purpose in starting with Earth...to awaken it, for Spirit to descend into Matter...like the divine being born as human.


The manger is just a manger until we give it meaning, until we awaken it and it awakens us.

To the creche, we added figures representing Earth: Joseph, Ox, and Manger:

St. Joseph is a hard-working carpenter.  He has many hopes for the future. Maybe he built the manger himself? it is ready...for  something ordinary?  or something special?   He is the counterpart of the god Osiris, who represents the fertile black earth of Egypt.

The ox is also hard working.  He is just an animal...until we become aware of his soul and his being.  He works hard on our behalf.  We need to be grateful to him.  Our gratitude for the things of Earth awakens our hearts and gives wings to our minds.


May we receive awakening.  May we ascend.

Here is an Earth contemplation written by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: 

"Sons and daughters of the earth, steep yourself in the sea of matter, bathe in its fiery waters, for it is the source of your life and your youthfulness.

You thought you could do without it because the power of thought has been kindled in you?  You hoped that the more thoroughly you rejected the tangible, the closer you would be to spirit: that you would be more divine if you lived in the world  of pure thought, or at least more angelic if you fled the corporeal?  Well, you were like to have perished of hunger.

You must have oil for your limbs, blood for your veins, water for your soul, the world of reality for your intellect: do you not see that the very law of your own nature makes these a necessity for you?"